Barring unexpected incident, we'll be turning the spigots back on tomorrow (Friday) morning as planned. Thanks for your patience as we sort out what kind of server outage schedule ends up being the most productive - a definite work in progress. So what did we accomplish this week during the downtime?

Programming wise, Jeff was able to tackle some longstanding datarecorder issues. You may have noticed our results-to-send queue has been growing rather large - these are some test tapes Jeff's been splitting which will be sent out rather quickly once the floodgates open (the status page already shows the schedulers are up which is wrong - that's a bug I need to fix). I did some cleanup of our various internal libraries - stuff that would never get done under normal-operation circumstances but has been bugging us for a long time. I also fixed a web site bug here, a donation processing bug there.

Server wise, I got to upgrade the OS/mysql versions on the BOINC database servers - another thing that's been bothering me for a while. We also were able to do some testing/planning for some major server shuffling - trying to get the right services on the right servers, and the most important services on the most reliable servers. We still may have to get new hardware. I'll let you know.

Data wise, we were able to get back to merging our various spike tables together full bore - doing so while the project was up was causing all kinds of headaches. We'll have to turn the merge off over the weekend, of course. I also was able to do a whole bunch of data integrity testing - it's nice to be able to pull 1 Gbyte of signals out of the science database without the query getting blocked, or worrying about blocking other queries.

In short, it may not seem like much this first week given the extended downtime, but the mood around here is a lot better when we have the time and resources to take care of longstanding projects without worrying about squeezing them in edgewise. I think general productivity will vastly improve over time, and we'll adjust the outage schedules accordingly.

Speaking of time, I'm actually outta here - going on a three week vacation for various reasons. It'll actually be a "staycation" so I'll be on call to help in case of a crisis...

- Matt

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Here's hoping you get to enjoy your staycation without us bothering you. Glad you guys managed to get so much done and hope everything goes well this weekend. Guess we'll find out in the morning! :-)
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Thanks for the update but did you guys fix any of the showstopper bugs like completion time estimates that make everything go into high priority and stop all downloads even if you are almost dry? Thanks again....
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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

Thanks for the update but did you guys fix any of the showstopper bugs like completion time estimates that make everything go into high priority and stop all downloads even if you are almost dry? Thanks again....

That's a Boinc thingy....under DA's control.
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Behold the power of kitty!!

I have no idea how much resources are gone during the new 'server outage schedule' with stats-requests, but I may have some ideas about it:

1) The export (in /stats/)
I think you (guys) already thought of this, but I'll mention it, just to be safe. As far as I can see the '29th export' was the last complete one, after the systems went down. But there was a '30th export' with some very marginal new data. It might be a good idea to also completely lock down the export routine in your 'server outage schedule' (no resources lost on creating the export, no bandwidth lost with all those stats guys downloading the new info etc.. ;) )

2) caching the Berkeley-stats-pages
As far as I know the 'userw-data' has a caching of two hours, the team, hosts and user stats have a similar caching system. The various "personal stats pages" are real time. When the 'server outage schedule' kicks in, could caching be set to "indefinitely"? And can the personal stats be cached as well (no use in updating a page when you know the result is the same)?

He guys, I think you are doing a great job. Mostly admins are highly under appreciated. I watch as the services are coming online and wait until the new work comes available.
Have a nice holiday :-)
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